Last Big East Tourney In Hartford Could End With UConn-Notre Dame Final

Event Starts Friday At 4 P.M.; Final Is Tuesday

March 07, 2013|By JOHN ALTAVILLA, jaltavilla@courant.com, The Hartford Courant

HARTFORD — — On Wednesday afternoon, as she had for the first three years of her administration, associate commissioner Danielle Donehew helped her Big East crew set up at the XL Center for this season's conference championship.

And then on Wednesday night, as she had for the first three years, Donehew and her team joined XL Center administrators at Dish Restaurant in downtown Hartford for dinner.

The only thing different about these traditional renewals this time is it would be the last time it happens under the Big East banner.

"[The current Big East administration is] committed to the product we have on the court – right now," Donehew said. "The staff wants to enjoy this tournament, the completion of this season. And it's about right now for our student-athletes.

"We want to make sure we do the right thing by putting them first by focusing on the championship that is before us. We need to make sure we serve them well."

Friday's tournament will start with a tripleheader, opening with Seton Hall vs. Cincinnati at 4.

The Big East tournament has been played annually in Hartford since 2003-04 after moving around college campuses since the inaugural event at St. John's in 1982.

This season's event features No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 3 UConn. Six others, No. 13 Louisville, No. 24 Syracuse, St. John's, DePaul, Villanova and South Florida, have a legitimate chance of obtaining at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament.

Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins, expected to be named the Big East's player of the year on Friday, will lead an Irish team on a 23-game winning streak into the tournament, fresh off its triple-overtime win over UConn Monday in South Bend, Ind.

Monday's game "was beautiful to see and everyone knew that it was a bit historical, a game that will go down in the ages for women's basketball," Donehew said. "It will be talked about for years to come."

If Notre Dame and UConn play for the title Tuesday night, it will be the third straight year they've done so. The Huskies won both those games, but subsequently lost two NCAA national semifinal games to the Irish.

The teams have met 10 times since the start of the 2010-11 season. Notre Dame has won six of the past seven meetings.

"Monday's game was for fun and for pride, as much as anything," Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw said.

The Huskies' three losses have come to Notre Dame (twice) and No. 1 Baylor. But UConn has a lot to correct. The Huskies committed 35 turnovers and lost leads in regulation and all three overtimes on Monday.

"It's been that kind of year," coach Geno Auriemma said. "I've seen many things I've never seen before."

UConn senior Kelly Faris, the conference's co-defensive player of the year, promised to make sure Monday's loss served a purpose.

"I have always said there is something to learn from a loss. There always is. I will sit there and wrack my brain, think about things we could have done better," Faris said. "We should have blocked this person out or done this better. There's going to be a million things that we should have done differently.

"In the end, you have to figure out who wants it more. What are you willing to give up to get it? And it can't come from just one or two people. It needs to come from an entire team that is willing to give up everything to win."

UConn's quarterfinal game will be Sunday at 6. Notre Dame's quarterfinal is Sunday at 2.

Among the other participants, third seed Syracuse brings its three career 1,000-point scorers to its final tournament as a Big East member. All-Big East center Kayla Alexander, Carmen Tyson-Thomas and Elashier Hall have led the Orange (23-6) to the most wins in program history.

Two conference first-team selections, Georgetown's Sugar Rodgers and Louisville's Shoni Schimmel, each had 38-point games. South Florida's twins, Andrea and Adrell Smith, brought life to the Bulls' offense.

And Brittany Hrynko emerged as a first-team all-star at DePaul when senior Anna Martin injured her knee early in the season.